How To Rapidly Improve Your MCAT Score | MCAT Practice Tips

This is the video you've been looking for . We're gonna talk about key strategies that you can completely change your prep from the traditional approach of doing a bunch of full-length tests , doing questions as an afterthought . We're going to flip all that on its head , get you some exact strategies for executing on your MCAT prep and be successful .

So we'll hit the intro and let me know how your MCAT prep is going . Comment in the box right now Let me know how your MCAT prep is going , let me know any questions you have and I'll make sure I address them in this video . Today is the day , guys . You're going to take your future into your own hands . You're going to dominate .

You're going to be successful . No excuses , just dominate . All right , guys . Like I said , I'm Dr Andre Pines and I'm here , as always , to help you guys be more productive , more positive pre-meds , to live your journey , to love your journey and to get to your favorite , your top , your dream medical school . And you guys know this MCAT . Oh , the MCAT right .

It's that last major hurdle before you get to that white coat and for many students it's very frustrating . Cool Gray 41 , what's up ? Let's get it today right , right , um , for many students it's very frustrating because you've worked so hard for so long . They try to get in the medical school .

You've done all the years you've prepared gpa , you've done all the grunt work , all the volunteering and now here's the mcat and you're like gosh , dang it . This test is insane . And today we're going to talk about one of the biggest misconceptions of mcat prep and that is you should do as many full lengths as possible .

I'm going to deconstruct this , break this down , show you why full length tests are actually poison to your top MCAT score . I'm going to show you this today and then I'm going to show you the alternative of how you can be a student who is ready for the MCAT dialed into the MCAT .

A student who understands the process and how to ask can be a student who is ready for the MCAT dialed into the MCAT . A student who understands the process and how to ask questions , a student who has the stamina to attack this long exam . I'm going to teach you how to ramp up , how to gear up , how to be successful MCAT student .

So , if you're ready right now , like this video . If you're ready , comment like cool grades , do it right and let me know . Talking about creating a healthy schedule , like you said . So , in the chronic phase , building up the fun of knowledge Okay , I love it . Oh , osa , what up ? All right ?

So one of my students who's talking about the fundamentals of MCAT prep that I teach in my course how to dominate the MCAT without an expensive prep class . It is the most affordable , most effective MCAT prep out there , guys .

As a disadvantaged student myself back in the day , I know what it is to be short on cash and long on dreams , and so I wanted to create this opportunity to have this affordable MCAT course for you guys . So please check it out on my website , premanproducercom .

I'll actually put a link with a discount in the description below after I'm done being live here today , because we always want discounts , right , even if it's affordable . We want even more discounts because we want you guys to succeed and have what you need to be successful .

So , with the MCAT , full-length , full-length test , full-length test , full-length test is what we hear all the time . And you hear , hey , listen , if you're struggling with the MCAT , take my full-length test . Hey , if you want to really ramp your score , take a full-length test . And this is such bad advice , guys .

And if anybody ever tells you , hey , you're struggling with your MCAT , take more full-length tests . You tell that person get away from me , you poison wizard , you witch , you sorcerer of doom trying to sabotage my MCAT prep .

Because the truth is , guys , people who tell you that aren't real study experts aren't real experts on the MCAT and don't know what they're talking about . And the unfortunate thing is , like some things in our society , we just repeat what we hear . And that's what's happened with full length tests is that the research shows . Let's go back to it , right .

The core research for why full length tests are so hyped for the MCAT goes back to inquiry based learning , question based learning , problem based learning , questions , because it creates an opportunity for highly active learning where we have to think , recall , apply our knowledge and our information in a modality that's applicable on the exam .

And so , for all these reasons , inquiry-based learning , problem-based learning , question-based learning , concept-based learning , all this stuff is very , very powerful and this is what the research shows that if you do questions , you will do better , you will have a better understanding , you will do better on the exam .

The problem is that so many people just read the headline of the research was that , hey , if you do questions , you will get better . And so they took that headline , that superficial overview of what the actual research is , and they said , okay , wait , if doing questions is great , doing more questions must be better .

And so they tell you guys do lots of questions , okay , great . Then they say , okay , wait , what has the most questions possible ? A full-length test , it's six hours of questions . Oh my gosh , we've unlocked the secret .

So let's give these students a million full-length exams and let's tell them to take all the full-length exams , because that will be the most questions and that will give them the highest score . How many guys have heard this ? How many guys have followed the logic right there ? Right , oh my gosh , the more questions , the more better . More questions , more better .

The problem with that ? It's an incomplete , superficial understanding of what it takes to succeed on any exam , including the MCAT exam , and the problem with superficial approaches , right , when you look at one thing . You look at a headline , as you guys who are preparing for the MCAT know right .

You look at one sentence , you look at one paragraph , you look at the question and then you assume what comes next and what happens ? They trip you up every time and you miss the question . Because when you assume what happens , you make an ass out of you and me .

So when you assume about research , what happens , you assume the wrong thing and it ends up as a problem . When you assume with your MCAT prep what happens , you are led astray and you will sabotage your MCAT prep . And so we don't take assumptions here . On my channel , we're at Premium Productivity . We are all about specificity .

We're all about executing to the highest of levels . We're all about the truth in the data . Here , truth is what I bring to you guys . So when it comes to full-length tests , we can't be superficial . We can't say more questions , more better . We have to say well , what do we mean by questions ? Help us .

And so today we're going to walk through the series of steps and I'm going to separate full length tests for you and why they don't work , based on the literature . Are we ready ? Who's ready ? Like the video right now , and let me know we ready to get started .

I'm going to silence my phone so we can get at it like we really want to get at it right now . Let me silence this phone , okay ? The equivalent of when I tell you to do a whole lot of questions . The problem with that is that it's not what you do , but it's how you do it .

And when I tell you to do a bunch of questions , it's like if I told you hey , listen , uh , if you do a bunch of patient interviews and you give patients a bunch of medications , eventually you'll be a great doctor .

Well , no , no , no , you must learn how to be a doctor , how to diagnose , diagnose , how to do an interview , how to administer medication , which medication to administer , otherwise you're going to be killing people , and that's what's happening with your MCAT . I can't just tell you do a bunch of questions . That's not specific enough to action to be effective .

So what do we have to do ? We have to dive into this . So when we say do lots of questions and questions make you effective ? Well , if we look at the literature and we go into the details , it shows us that it's not just about the volume of questions you do .

In fact , it has very little to do with the volume of questions you do and it's all about how you do those questions . It starts with the fact that when we do questions and we're approaching questions , there are a couple of components to your question-based learning . Are we ready for your MCAT questions ? Here's how we do it .

The first thing is is that you must approach your questions with an understanding that there are distinct phases of question doing . The first is that we do the question , then we must review the question , then we must do what guys ? We must create understanding from that question , and then we must what ?

Create a repository for that information , like our notes , and then we must have a mechanism to create repetitions , to create retention of said question .

So it's a multi-stage process here and so , with the first stage the way we're looking at this we have to look at the research that shows when we do questions , the high yield of a utility is mostly in the review and very little in the do , and this is the first way that full-length tests fail you .

If you think about full-length tests and the way most students approach them , it's a super long exam . It takes all day . So what ends up happening ? We end up doing the exam and our focus is on doing the test and seeing the score at the end , and not so much on the review .

And so the first fundamental flaw with full-length tests is that they are actually a great assessor of your score and not a great progressor of your score . So they assess your readiness for the exam , but it doesn't progress your readiness . You guys understand what I'm saying .

Full-length tests are designed to say , okay , here's where I am , here's what I know , here's how prepared I am . But the problem with that right is that we , as preppers , are trying to prepare , we're trying to progress , we're trying to get better , and so if we're only assessing and seeing where we're at , of course we're not going to be prepared .

And so not only am I not progressing on the days I do full-length tests , but resting on the days I do full-length tests , but I'm also what , setting myself up for a huge psychological obstacle . Because here I am assessing my readiness months out from my exam , knowing that I need a lot more prep and I'm not ready . So what ends up happening ?

We get back a bad MCAT score , we take this full-length , we're sitting there . We're nervous the whole time . The score pops out and the score's awful , no good , terrible . And we're like , oh my gosh , I've never been too well in the MCAT . The problem is , guys , it's literally like stepping in a ring with Mike Tyson . You are untrained .

You're here to train , to prepare , so that way you can be ready for your MCAT by test date . So if you take a bunch of full-length tests , all you're doing is assessing and proving to yourself that you are not ready . And as students we have this fixed mindset where we're saying , listen , if I'm not ready right now , I ain't never going to be ready .

I ain't never going to be ready . And we start that doubt cycle , that nervous cycle . And if you think about it , when you take your weekly full-length as a lot of people recommend you take that full-length , you get . You get that crappy score back and then you spend the entire week feeling like what Crap ?

Because you feel like you are that crappy score and you will always be that crappy score and you will never move forward . And so all week you study from a place of low depression , negative thoughts of lack of confidence , of this whole thing of I will never be ready . And when we tell ourselves we will never be ready .

We've now lost hope , and without hope there was no reason to try and to really commit ourselves . And so we've psyched ourselves out and the whole week it's just dread , it's just terror , leading up to that next full length we can take to .

Oh , we're going to prove ourselves that this week we approved , and then , what do you know , the next week it's just as bad . And so it's a cycle of repeated whoopings and affirmations of the doubts you have , as opposed to moving you forward and moving you up the ladder . Does that make sense to everybody ? So full-length tests assess .

They don't progress your score . They're designed to assess , not progress . And the reason that big distinction is important , because if we want to progress our score , then the questions must be designed in a certain way that facilitates those different cycles I talked about of doing questions .

And so when we talk about progressing your score , what are the fundamentals of questions that improve our score ? Well , it's all about that review aspect . So there's a couple of key components . You guys ready , when we do questions , we must spend a significant more time reviewing questions than we spend doing questions .

Not only must we spend more time reviewing than doing . We must commit ourselves to timely review , meaning we must review those questions in short order after we've completed the question . Why ? Because this allows us and this is particularly important on the MCAT , because , if you guys don't know , the MCAT is a critical thinking test .

They have a whole section called CARS right Critical right . It's critical reading . So in our CARS section and for the entire test , it's a critical exam and so therefore , not only when we review questions are we reviewing for content , which is a mistake a lot of students make . We're just reviewing oh , did I get it right ? Did I know this ?

We also want to be reviewing for our thought process and our critical thinking . If we take too long between when we do a question and when we review it , we have no ability to recall what we were thinking when we did that question .

And if we can't recall what we were thinking , we cannot then critique and assess and analyze and progress and move forward our thinking in our critical test taking . Does this make sense to everybody ? This is such a key distinction as we go through and do questions and we review . It's not just about the content of do I know this ? Have I memorized this ?

It's about how could I have known this without knowing the answer ? How could I have problem solved this ? How could I have led myself in a better way ? How could I have read better to get this answer ? And if you can do that , that's how you pick up points , that's how you progress .

But if we have too far between when we do the question and when we review it , it doesn't work . And with full-length tests , you take a test one day , you review the next day and you did all these questions . There's no way you can remember exactly what you're thinking on that specific question .

So what we want to do is we want to do smaller question sets 20 , 30 questions at a time . That way it allows us to remember oh yeah , that was just a couple questions ago , and we can remember exactly what we're thinking . Oh yeah , I didn't read that sentence , that's right . I tried to go back , I didn't have enough time . Oh yeah , well , you know what ?

Oh , no-transcript . And so full-length tests don't allow you to do that . So we're going to take our questions . We're going to do the questions small blocks , so that way we can review very rapidly afterward and attack our critical thinking . The next thing up is that when you do this review .

It's not just about reviewing the question and saying , oh , I got that . We have to walk through all the steps of learning I was talking about earlier , where we take this question . We look at the explanation , we look at our books and we see , okay , wait for this question . Yes , this is the answer . Oh , yes , this was a organic chemistry question .

Oh , yes , it was about acid base . Okay , got that . Cool , that's the content portion . But now they've explained it in their way . Okay , there's a Lewis acid , a Lewis base , electron donator . Oh , there's an oxidizer . How does all these terms fit ? As rookie students , you will write down those terms . Okay , I'm going to write this down .

Oh yeah , lewis acid , lewis base . The question I'll ask you is is how many of you guys right now could define a Lewis acid in an effective way ? I'll wait , comment in the box how many of you guys can define a Lewis acid or a Lewis base and give it to me in basic form ?

And this is funny because I had a student and we were talking about this exact same thing for the MCAT , because they were like oh yeah , well , you know it's about Lewis acid . But what's a Lewis acid ? Oh , a Lewis acid is an electron detonator and I'm like you do not know what you're talking about because you're using definitions to define things .

You're using other people's understandings to try to define things .

What you have to do is , once you review the question , once you find out what the core content is , you need to take that content and what they say about it and you need to flip it , you need to roll it over and mold it into your understanding and create a clear understanding of oh , you know what , when we talk about an acid or a base , well , the acid

has a H plus , right , that's a proton , okay , wait . So therefore , it's going to what ? Proton ? Okay , wait . So therefore , it's going to what ? Bring electrons to it . So therefore , it's going to be right . Receiving the electron ? Okay , that makes sense .

Because then hydrogen and you start to reason it through in your own way oh , opposites attract , okay , we're bringing this . Okay .

And then , if we're at , and you start to talk about it in your own language , hopefully in a simple way , like a third grader could understand , because if you can do that and explain to a third grader in your mind , that means you really got it down , you really got an understanding of what an electron donator is .

An electron recipient is an oxidizer , a reducer . You understand redox and then , by understanding at a basic level , you can then level up and add layers to it . So we create our own understanding . Once you get your own understanding , what do we have to do ? Guys , we have to take a note on that .

When a lot of people do questions , they have this whole missed questions list . It's a waste of time because that creates disorganized learning . One of the keys to effective learning , to rapid learning and to sustained learning is that we have to be an organized learner . Think about your closet . Right ?

If your clothes are all over the floor , if your clothes are all over the closet , there's no organization to it . How long does it take to find an outfit ? And then , once you find that outfit , can you find ? Right ? You find the shirt . Where's the pants that go with it ? Oh , that's what happens to you guys on your MCAT test .

Think about it , the MCAT test . You may have thought this to yourself a million times If I just had more time on this MCAT , I would get all the questions right . Right , and that is very true . And they've actually done that study right , you give people unlimited time . On the MCAT they do so much better . Why ?

Because the material is there , but for the MCAT the time limitation is huge . You have to be able to not only know it , you have to be able to know it instantly . You have to be able to pull that information out and then apply it quickly on that exam .

And so if you have a disorganized closet where you can't find your stuff in your brain , how are you going to be able to pull out that knowledge , use it effectively and get it going ? You can't . And so when we learn things , when we go through questions , we don't just keep a random list of stuff . We organize our learning .

So we should have one set of notes . That is we can modify and we can organize . And so when we get we're doing our mixed questions , all these different questions , when we hit Lewis acid one time , then we get a question later on that's talking about redox . We don't have two separate notes .

We bring that redox up to that Lewis acid and we talk about how that relates and we talk about electron donation and receiving and we bring that together . So that way our learning is organized . So all that electron handling is up there in that one spot . It's not spread out , so it creates , instead of a million topics .

It's going to shrink the number of topics you have to learn . It's going to carry over concepts . You're going to see the connections and you're like , oh , wow , that makes sense . So we create our own understanding and then we organize that understanding in a central repository of notes , not a million different note stacks Next up now that we've taken that note .

Something that students don't do enough of is that we have to create repetitions of that note . If you make a note and you never review it , what's the point ? The whole function of notes is for you to go through your notes and remind yourself and to refresh that knowledge . Right that spaced repetition Everyone loves to use that word .

Oh , spaced repetition , execute that , guys . You create the note . You must build sufficient time in your schedule to review those notes , to repetize those notes , because if you want to remember things , retain things for months and months at a time as you go through your MCAT prep , you must have the repetitions .

Without repetition , there is not the retention , and so you have to build it in enough time . It can't just be an afterthought like oh , when I have a chance I'll look at my notes . No , every single day At the end of your day . If you studied for six hours , take one hour at the end of the day and just do a review .

If you study for 10 hours , take an hour . Review at the end of the day . I don't care . If you study for two hours of the day , take 20 minutes , whatever . Make time every single day at the end of your day to review what happened Even more .

As an advanced strategy , every time you have a study session , take the time to review at the end of that study session . So wait , okay , I did the study session , I made all these notes . Okay , wait , I'm going to take a second , I'm going to go back to these notes . I'm going to make them make sense again .

So now I'm building in another immediate repetition just to really drive home that knowledge , to get that first initial burst of high level understanding . So that way my curve of forgetting right , the forgetting curve is less steep , and then I'm going to constantly repetize to keep boosting up .

So I'm forgetting less and less and less and I'm remembering more of that material . So when I get to the MCAT , it's not like , oh , I only remember what I studied the last couple weeks , it's oh , I remember everything . I've studied for the whole four months . Does this make sense to everybody ?

So when we do questions , we have to first recognize it's not about doing the questions , it's about reviewing the questions . And when we review those questions , it's important to understand reviewing happens in stages and we have to execute at each of these stages to learn rapidly and to retain for a long time .

And so the first step is taking what is told to us , either in lecture or in the book , making it our own and creating our own understanding that is in our words and is simplified . Then , once it's simplified , we must record that in a repository . We must take notes on this , flashcards . Whatever you want to do , take that note .

Then , once you take that note , we must build in opportunities to repetize that and create retention . And by doing all this and breaking it down and getting specific with how we handle our questions , what do we get to do , guys ? What do we get to do ?

We get to execute at a higher level and we get to make the most of every single study session , every single question , and , as a result , your score skyrockets . So it's not about what you do , it's not about just doing questions , because questions only provide the opportunity to be active .

It's about how you actively engage to get the most , to suck all the juice out of each and every one of those questions . Yes , yes , this , we're at 20 something minutes so I'm gonna cut it off today . I'll continue this as a part two .

In next live stream We'll get more into the details of full length tests and how to leverage them and utilize them , and questions and how to leverage and utilize them and question make recommendations and resources .

So if you have any questions on this stuff , put the comments below so that way next session I make sure I answer it for you guys and get to that question . I hope you've enjoyed this live stream with me . I'm Dr Andre Pineset , the pre-med policy expert . Like I said , I'll put a link a discount link , to my MCAT course in the description box .

Get into my MCAT course , guys . It comes with coaching , comes with on-demand lectures and I'm going to teach you what no one else out there is teaching you , guys . I'm giving you those little points of leverage and edge and opportunity to perform , to prep smarter , so you can perform better than your peers guys . So thank you so much for joining me .

I'll see you next time . That's it for another episode of the Pre-Med Productivity Podcast . Show your love by smashing the like button and commenting in the box below . Today is the day , guys . No more excuses , no more complaining . You're going to take your future into your own hands . You're going to dominate . You're going to be successful . I challenge you .

What are you going to do today to make your life better ? Get to my website , freemedproductivitycom . Grab a free ebook , sign up for a free webinar and , if you're really ready to transform , enroll in one of my life-changing courses or coaching programs . You have greatness inside you .

Let me show you how to unlock it so you can dominate and make your dreams a reality . No excuses , just dominate .